


Of Skin and Bone

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Paint The Sky With Stars [33]
Category: Night World - Fandom, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Witches, Crossover, Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 04:09:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7298989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "any, any, <i>Caught (as it were) in the muck-trap / Of skin and bone</i> - Letter to a Purist (Sylvia Plath)"</p><p>Evan contemplates that moment between human and True Form.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Skin and Bone

Evan understood why the Ancients wanted to ascend. At least, he thought he did. Because he was pretty sure he experienced Ascension for a fraction of a second every time he shifted. That quicksilver moment when he was between forms, that instant of weightlessness, formlessness, was indescribable. He was everything and nothing. He was everywhere and nowhere. He was and he wasn't. And in that moment, he understood all. And then the physicality came crashing down on him, and he was caught, once again, in the muck trap that was skin and bone.  
  
“Do you feel it?” he asked Ronon one day, while they were lounging in the coolness of their room. He insisted everyone have one rest day a week. It was good for the soul.  
  
“Feel what?” Ronon was sharpening his knives. It was calming and meditative for him.  
  
“That moment, when you shift. That -” Evan paused, struggled for words.  
  
Ronon nodded. “Yeah. Every time.”  
  
Evan eyed him. “I wonder…”  
  
“Wonder what?” Ronon asked.  
  
“What if - what if we were both _right there_ at the same time?”  
  
Ronon raised his eyebrows. “You mean -?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Ronon scooped his knives up, sheathed them, and set them aside. Then he stood up. Evan did the same, went to stand opposite him on the far side of the admittedly small room. He was pretty sure he knew what Ronon was driving at.  
  
“On three,” Ronon said.   
  
Evan nodded.  
  
“One, two, three -”  
  
They dashed toward each other full tilt. Leaped. Shifted. Ronon landed on the other side of the room in True Form a split second after Evan. They both reverted to human form.  
  
“Close,” Evan said.  
  
“Not close enough. Again?” The intensity burning in Ronon’s eyes was the same as the excitement burning in Evan’s veins.  
  
“Again.”  
  
It was trial and error, adjusting the distance between them, counting the number of strides each of them took before they leaped, trying to match the timing perfectly.  
  
After two dozen trials, both of them were breathing hard and covered with a sheen of sweat.  
  
“Maybe it’s not possible,” Ronon said.  
  
Evan shook his head. “Nothing’s impossible. Not for us. One more time.”  
  
Ronon scanned their surroundings, the scratched wooden floor, the peeling walls, the patchy ceiling. “Do we need more space?”  
  
“No. We’ve calibrated for this space. And besides, I wouldn’t want everyone else staring.” Shifting in front of other people was still strange, even after Evan’s status as a shifter had become acceptable on Atlantis. To a point. All his life, he’d had to keep this side of himself a secret. It would be a long time before he was comfortable with people seeing him change, even if he didn’t have to get naked to do it like he had in times past.  
  
Ronon rolled his shoulders. “Okay. One more time.”  
  
Evan stepped back into his corner for maximum distance, and it felt like time kicked into slow motion. He breathed. Ronon breathed with him. He stepped. Ronon stepped at the same time. Across the floor, toward each other like unerring arrows flying true, they ran, each footfall synchronized into a single heartbeat. Evan jumped, and Ronon was airborne at the same time.  
  
They shifted.  
  
And then -  
  
Lightning. Supernova. Big bang. The beginning and the end, all rolled into one. Evan didn’t know where he ended and the world began, and then he was beside Ronon, in Ronon, through Ronon. _Was_ Ronon.

Ronon was a thousand stained glass windows, scenes shifting and changing. Running through the jungle. Lying beside Evan. Beheading a Wraith. Drinking in the barracks with his comrades. Sparring with Teyla. Holding his grandfather’s hand and ambling through the market. Ink-spattered and kissing Melena. Sitting in his quarters on Atlantis, surrounded by balled up sheets of paper, the corpses of bad poetry.  
  
The steel jaws of _form_ and _physical_ and _body_ closed around him and dragged him down, and when Evan came to, he was in human form, sprawled on the floor, heart racing, entire body tingling like he was coming down from an orgasm.  
  
“Ronon?”  
  
Ronon was okay. Evan knew it. Knew it the same way he knew where his hands and feet were at any given moment.  
  
But Ronon’s presence was also a warm hum behind his breastbone.  
  
“Damn,” Ronon gasped. “We have to do that again.”  
  
Evan laughed breathlessly. “Yeah. Sure. When I can move.” And then a strange sensation thrummed through him, like he was a harp string that had just been plucked. Evan rolled onto his side, and Ronon rolled toward him.  
  
A silver cord blazed between them and was gone.  
  
Evan stared.  
  
Ronon stared.  
  
“Did you -?” Evan began.  
  
“I saw it,” Ronon said. He crawled across the floor, draped himself over Evan, and kissed him.  
  
Evan closed his eyes and surrendered. The next morning, he’d probably be embarrassed about his cries and moans, the way the entire room shook, but he didn’t care. Tonight, he and Ronon were one.


End file.
